Novel Numerical Scheme for Singularly Perturbed Time Delay Convection-Diffusion Equation
Abstract
This paper deals with numerical treatment of singularly perturbed parabolic differential equations having large time delay. The highest order derivative term in the equation is multiplied by a perturbation parameter ε, taking arbitrary value in the interval (0, 1]. For small values of ε, solution of the problem exhibits an exponential boundary layer on the right side of the spatial domain. The properties and bounds of the solution and its derivatives are discussed. The considered singularly perturbed time delay problem is solved using the Crank-Nicolson method in temporal discretization and exponentially fitted operator finite difference method in spatial discretization. The stability of the scheme is investigated and analysed using comparison principle and solution bound. The uniform convergence of the scheme is discussed and proven. The formulated scheme converges uniformly with linear order of convergence. The theoretical analysis of the scheme is validated by considering numerical test examples for different values of ε.
1. Introduction
A large number of mathematical models appear in different areas of science and engineering such as in control theory, epidemiology, and laser optics that take into account not only the present state of a physical system but also its past history [1]. These models are described by certain classes of functional differential equations often called delay differential equations. Examples of delays include the time taken for a signal to travel to the controlled object, driver reaction time, the time for the body to produce red blood cells, and cell division time in the dynamics of viral exhaustion or persistence. In the life sciences, delays are often introduced to account for hidden variables and processes which, although not well understood, are known to cause a time lag [1]. Time delays are natural components of the dynamic processes of biology, ecology, physiology, economics, epidemiology, and mechanics [2], and to ignore them is to ignore reality [1].
The presence of the singular perturbation parameter ε on the highest order derivative term leads to occurrences of oscillations in the computed solution while using central FDM, Galerkin FEM, and collocation methods on a uniform mesh [4]. While using these methods to avoid the oscillations, an unacceptably large number of mesh points are required when ε is very small. This is not practical due to the limited size of computer memory and rounding off error. Therefore, to overcome this drawback associated with classical numerical methods, authors use the fitted mesh technique which have a fine mesh in the boundary layer region or fitted operator technique. Recently, numerical treatment of singularly perturbed parabolic PDEs has gotten great attention, and different authors in [5–8] have developed uniformly convergent numerical schemes (scheme that converges independent of the influence of the singular perturbation parameter). Currently, authors in [9–13] have developed numerical schemes for solving singularly perturbed parabolic time delay reaction-diffusion equations. In papers [14, 15], the authors considered a singularly perturbed parabolic convection diffusion equation with time delay and degenerate coefficient. They treat the problems using fitted mesh techniques. Different authors in [16–23] developed numerical schemes using fitted mesh techniques for treating singularly perturbed parabolic time delay convection-diffusion equations. In [24], Podila and Kumar used nonstandard FDM for treating singularly perturbed parabolic time delay convection-diffusion equations. Their scheme gives linear order of convergence.
The main motive of this paper is to formulate an accurate and uniformly convergent numerical scheme for the singularly perturbed parabolic time delay convection-diffusion-reaction equation using exponentially fitted operator FDM and to establish the stability and uniform convergence of the scheme. The proposed scheme uses the procedure of Roth (i.e., first discretizing in temporal direction followed by discretization in spatial direction) using the Crank-Nicolson method in temporal direction and exponentially fitted operator FDM on spatial direction. In this method, it is not required to have any restriction on the mesh generation.
Notation 1. Throughout this paper, N and M are denoted for the number of mesh intervals in space and time direction discretization, respectively; C is denoted for positive constant independent of ε, N, and M. The norm ‖.‖ denotes the maximum norm defined as .
2. Continuous Problem
This condition ensures that the solution of the problem in (2)–(4) exhibits a boundary layer of thickness O(ε) on the right side of the spatial domain.
Our objective in this paper is to formulate an accurate and parameter uniformly convergent numerical scheme and to discuss the uniform stability and the parameter uniform convergence of the scheme for the considered problem in (2)–(4).
2.1. Bounds on the Solution and Its Derivatives
The existence and uniqueness of the solution of (2)–(4) can be established by assuming that the data is Holder continuous and imposing appropriate compatibility conditions at the corner points, using the assumptions of sufficiently smoothness ofϕl(t), ϕb(x, t), andϕr(t).
It is in the form of hyperbolic delay PDEs. The solution u(x, t) of (2)–(4) becomes very close to the solution u0(x, t) of (8)–(10) as ε⟶0.
Lemma 2. The solution u(x, t) of (2)–(4) satisfies the estimate
Proof. The result follows from the compatibility condition. See the detailed proof in [16].
Let L be a differential operator that denotes the differential equation in (2)–(4) as L = ∂/∂t − ε(∂2/∂x2) + a(x)(∂/∂x) + b(x, t).
Lemma 3. Suppose the function , which satisfies z(x, t) ≥ 0, (x, t) ∈ ∂D, and Lz(x, t) ≥ 0, (x, t) ∈ D implies that .
Proof. Assume there exists , such that
It is clear that the point (x∗, t∗) ∉ ∂D, which implies that (x∗, t∗) ∈ D. Since from extreme values in calculus which implies (∂/∂x)z(x∗, t∗) = 0, (∂/∂t)z(x∗, t∗) = 0, and (∂2/∂x2)z(x∗, t∗) ≥ 0 giving that Lz(x∗, t∗) < 0, which is contradiction to the assumption that made Lz(x∗, t∗) ≥ 0, ∀(x, t) ∈ D. Therefore, .
Lemma 4. Let u(x, t) be the solution of the continuous problem in (2)–(4). Then, we obtain the bound
Proof. By defining the barrier functions ϑ±(x, t) as ϑ±(x, t) = ζ−1‖f‖ + max{|ϕl(t)|, |ϕb(x, t)|, |ϕr(t)|} ± u(x, t) and applying the maximum principle, we obtain the required bound.
Lemma 5. The bound on the derivative of the solution u(x, t) of the problem in (2)–(4) with respect to x and t is given by
3. Numerical Scheme
In general, for singularly perturbed problems, there are two strategies for designing numerical methods which have a small error in the boundary layer region [25]. The first approach is the class of fitted mesh methods which uses fine mesh in the boundary layer region and coarse mesh in outer layer region. The stability and convergence analyses of this approach are well developed. The second approach is the fitted operator methods in which it uses uniform mesh and an exponentially fitting factor for stabilizing the term containing the singular perturbation parameter. In this approach, the difference schemes reflect the qualitative behaviour of the solution inside the boundary layer region. In this article, we formulate an exponentially fitted operator finite difference scheme to solve the problem in (2)–(4).
3.1. Temporal Semidiscretization
The time domain [0, T] is discretized using a uniform mesh with time step Δt as and where M is the number of mesh points in time direction in the interval [0, T] and m is the number of mesh points in [−τ, 0]. Note that T = kτ for some positive integer k.
Here, Uj+1(x) is denoted for the approximation of u(x, tj+1) at the (j + 1)th time level andb(x, tj+1/2) = (1/2)[b(x, tj) + b(x, tj+1)], similarly for c(x, tj+1/2) and f(x, tj+1/2).
The semidiscrete difference operator (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt)Uj+1(x) in (15)–(16) satisfies the maximum principle as follows.
Lemma 6. Semidiscrete maximum principle. Let Zj+1(x) be a sufficiently smooth function on . If Zj+1(0) ≥ 0, Zj+1(1) ≥ 0 and (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt)Zj+1(x) ≥ 0, ∀x ∈ Ωx, then .
Proof. Assume that there exist such that . From the above assumption, it is clear that x∗ ∉ {0, 1} implies that x∗ ∈ (0, 1). Since , using the property in calculus, we have (d/dx)Zj+1(x∗) = 0 and (d2/dx2)Zj+1(x∗) ≥ 0, then we obtain (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt)Zj+1(x∗) < 0 which is in contradiction to (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt)Zj+1(x∗) ≥ 0, ∀x ∈ Ωx. Therefore, we conclude .
Next, let us analyse the truncation error for the temporal discretization made above.
Let the local error at each time step be denoted by ej+1(x)≔u(x, tj+1) − Uj+1(x), j = 0, 1, 2, ⋯, M.
Lemma 7. Suppose that
Proof. Using Taylor’s series approximation for u(x, tj) and u(x, tj+1) centering at tj+1/2, we obtain
Next, we need to show the bound for the global error of the temporal discretization. Let us denote TEj+1 as the global error up to the (j + 1)th time step.
Lemma 8. The global error at tj+1 is given by
Proof. Using the local error up to the (j + 1)th time step given in the above lemma, we obtain the global error at the (j + 1)th time step as
Next, we set a bound for the derivatives of solution of (15)–(16).
Lemma 9. For each j = 0, 1, ⋯, M − 1, the solution Uj+1(x) of the boundary value problems in (15)–(16) satisfies the bound
Proof. See the proof in [5].
3.2. Spatial Discretization
The spatial domain [0, 1] is discretized into N equal number of subintervals, each of length h. Let 0 = x0, xN = 1, and xi = ih, i = 0, 1, 2, ⋯, N, be the mesh points. For spatial discretization, we apply an exponentially fitted operator finite difference method which helps us to hinder the influence of the singular perturbation parameter.
First, let us find the exponential fitting factor for anonymous BVPs and then apply discretization in the spatial direction.
3.2.1. Computing the Exponential Fitting Factor
3.2.2. The Discrete Scheme
3.3. Stability and Uniform Convergence Analysis
First, we need to prove the discrete comparison principle for the discrete scheme in (39).
Lemma 10. Discrete comparison principle. There exist a comparison function Zi,j+1 such that (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt,h)Ui,j+1 ≤ (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt,h)Zi,j+1, i = 1, 2, ⋯, N − 1 and if U0,j+1 ≤ Z0,j+1 and UN,j+1 ≤ ZN,j+1, then Ui,j+1 ≤ Zi,j+1, i = 0, 1, 2, ⋯, N.
Proof. The matrix associated with operator (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt,h)Ui,j+1 is of size (N + 1) × (N + 1) with its entries for i = 1, 2, ⋯, N − 1 are
So, the coefficient matrix satisfies the property of M matrix. So, the inverse matrix exists and it is nonnegative. This guarantees the existence and uniqueness of the discrete solution. See the detailed proof in [28].
Lemma 11. Let Zi,j+1 = 1 + xi, for, 0 ≤ i ≤ N. Then, there exist a positive constant C such that (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt,h)Zi,j+1 ≥ C, for 1 ≤ i ≤ N − 1.
Proof. The proof is a simple computation, enables one to give a bound, that is uniform in ε for the norm of the inverse of (1 + (Δt/2)LΔt,h).
Lemma 12. (uniform stability estimate). The solution Ui,j+1 of the discrete scheme in (39) satisfies the bound
where b(xi, tj+1/2) ≥ ζ > 0.
Proof. Let us construct a barrier function as . We can easily show that. Then,
Using the discrete comparison principle, we obtain
Lemma 13. If Zi,j+1 be any mesh function such that Z0,j+1 = ZN,j+1 = 0.Then,
Proof. Consider two barrier functions of the form where P = (1/ζ)max1≤k≤N−1|LΔt,hZk,j+1|. It is easily shown that . Next, we show that .
Next, we consider the semidiscrete problem in (15)–(16) and the fully discrete scheme in (39) to find the truncation error of the spatial direction discretization.
Theorem 14. Let the coefficient functions a(x) and b(x, tj+1/2) in (15)–(16) be sufficiently smooth functions so that Uj+1(x) ∈ C4[0, 1]. Then, the computed solution Ui,j+1 of the problem in (39) satisfies the bound
Proof. The local truncation error in space discretization is given as
Using the bounds for the differences of the derivatives in (54) and (55), we obtain
Using the bounds for the derivatives of the solution in Lemma 9 gives
Lemma 15. For a fixed number of mesh numbers N, and for ε⟶0, it holds
Proof. On the discrete domain , for the interior grid points, we have
This completes the proof.
Theorem 16. The numerical solution Ui,j+1 of the problem in (39) satisfies the following uniform error bound
Remark 17. For the case ε > h, the developed scheme gives second order convergence. For small values of ε ≪ h, the scheme is first order uniformly convergent in spatial direction.
Theorem 18. Let u and U be the solution of (2)–(4) and (39), respectively. Then, the following uniform error bound holds:
Proof. The combination of temporal and spatial error bounds gives the required result.
4. Numerical Examples, Results, and Discussions
Here, we illustrate the proposed scheme using model examples. The exact solutions of the considered examples are not known. We investigate the theoretical results by performing experiments using the proposed scheme.
Example 19. Consider singularly perturbed time delay parabolic PDEs:
Example 20. Consider singularly perturbed time delay parabolic PDEs:
In Figures 1 and 2, the numerical solution of Examples 19 and 20 is given, respectively, for different values of perturbation parameterε. As we observe on these figures, a strong boundary layer is maintained on the right side of the spatial domain as ε goes small starting from ε = 2−5 to 2−20. In these figures, we observe that the proposed scheme approximates the solution without creating oscillations or divergence. Note that time delay does not have an effect on position and size of the boundary layer since the layer occurs on the spatial domain direction. If the delay was on the spatial variable, we may have an interior layer which is created because of the delay parameter. In Tables 1 and 2, the maximum absolute error of Examples 19 and 20 is given, respectively, for different values of perturbation parameter ε and mesh numbers N, M. As we observed the results in these tables for each number of mesh N, M as ε becomes small, the maximum absolute error after showing growth becomes stable and identical. This indicates the stability and uniform convergence of the scheme. In the last two rows of these tables, the ε-uniform error and ε-uniform rate of convergence of the scheme are given. As one observes, the scheme gives first order uniform convergence. The second order convergence of the temporal discretization is depicted in Table 3. In Tables 4 and 5, comparison of the ε-uniform error and ε-uniform rate of convergence of the proposed scheme with results of some recently published papers is given. As we observed, the proposed scheme gives a more accurate result than the results in [16, 18–20] and [24]. The proposed scheme has a limitation for solving nonlinear singularly perturbed problems.


ε↓ | N = M = 16 | 32 | 64 | 128 | 256 | 512 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1.0742e-04 | 6.6552e-05 | 4.4167e-05 | 2.7392e-05 | 1.5041e-05 | 7.8477e-06 |
2−2 | 3.8959e-04 | 3.3429e-04 | 2.5726e-04 | 1.5142e-04 | 8.1424e-05 | 4.2142e-05 |
2−4 | 1.6240e-03 | 5.6521e-04 | 4.3969e-04 | 2.6289e-04 | 1.4270e-04 | 7.4226e-05 |
2−6 | 8.3743e-03 | 2.0823e-03 | 8.0261e-04 | 3.8986e-04 | 1.9220e-04 | 9.5980e-05 |
2−8 | 1.0404e-02 | 4.8511e-03 | 1.9751e-03 | 7.6437e-04 | 3.0100e-04 | 1.2812e-04 |
2−10 | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6147e-03 | 1.3838e-03 | 5.8980e-04 | 2.2292e-04 |
2−12 | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6159e-03 | 1.4219e-03 | 7.3950e-04 | 3.6693e-04 |
2−14 | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6159e-03 | 1.4219e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 3.7720e-04 |
2−16 | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6159e-03 | 1.4219e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 3.7720e-04 |
2−18 | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6159e-03 | 1.4219e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 3.7720e-04 |
2−20 | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6159e-03 | 1.4219e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 3.7720e-04 |
EN,M | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6159e-03 | 1.4219e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 3.7720e-04 |
rN,M | 1.0615 | 0.9310 | 0.8795 | 0.9425 | 0.9719 | — |
ε↓ | N = 16 | 32 | 64 | 128 | 256 | 512 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M = 10 | 20 | 40 | 80 | 160 | 320 | |
1 | 9.0612e-05 | 7.8840e-05 | 5.0913e-05 | 2.8361e-05 | 1.4905e-05 | 7.6151e-06 |
2−2 | 5.0971e-04 | 3.4843e-04 | 1.9886e-04 | 1.0569e-04 | 5.4425e-05 | 2.7604e-05 |
2−4 | 1.3108e-03 | 6.8037e-04 | 3.4323e-04 | 1.7164e-04 | 8.5788e-05 | 4.2882e-05 |
2−6 | 4.2800e-03 | 1.6597e-03 | 6.2601e-04 | 2.5497e-04 | 1.1234e-04 | 5.2343e-05 |
2−8 | 5.4803e-03 | 3.2949e-03 | 1.4175e-03 | 5.1091e-04 | 1.8211e-04 | 7.0533e-05 |
2−10 | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8283e-03 | 9.1599e-04 | 3.8114e-04 | 1.3511e-04 |
2−12 | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 9.4367e-04 | 4.7807e-04 | 2.3354e-04 |
2−14 | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 9.4367e-04 | 4.7832e-04 | 2.4067e-04 |
2−16 | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 9.4367e-04 | 4.7832e-04 | 2.4067e-04 |
2−18 | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 9.4367e-04 | 4.7832e-04 | 2.4067e-04 |
2−20 | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 9.4367e-04 | 4.7832e-04 | 2.4067e-04 |
EN,M | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 9.4367e-04 | 4.7832e-04 | 2.4067e-04 |
rN,M | 0.6928 | 0.8910 | 0.9549 | 0.9803 | 0.9909 | — |
Example 19 | Example 20 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ε↓ | N = 16 | 64 | 256 | N = 16 | 64 | 256 |
M = 16 | 32 | 64 | M = 10 | 20 | 40 | |
2−10 | 1.0409e-02 | 2.6147e-03 | 5.8980e-04 | 5.4832e-03 | 1.8283e-03 | 3.8004e-04 |
1.9931 | 2.1483 | — | 1.5845 | 2.0621 | — | |
2−12 | 1.0409e-02 | 2.6159e-03 | 7.3950e-04 | 5.4832e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 4.7807e-04 |
1.9925 | 1.8227 | — | 1.5838 | 1.9359 | — | |
2−14 | 1.0409e-02 | 2.6159e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 5.4832e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 4.7832e-04 |
1.9925 | 1.8220 | — | 1.5838 | 1.9352 | — | |
2−16 | 1.0409e-02 | 2.6159e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 5.4832e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 4.7832e-04 |
1.9925 | 1.8220 | — | 1.5838 | 1.9352 | — | |
2−18 | 1.0409e-02 | 2.6159e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 5.4832e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 4.7832e-04 |
1.9925 | 1.8220 | — | 1.5838 | 1.9352 | — | |
2−20 | 1.0409e-02 | 2.6159e-03 | 7.3985e-04 | 5.4832e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 4.7832e-04 |
1.9925 | 1.8220 | — | 1.5838 | 1.9352 | — |
Schemes ↓ | N = M = 16 | 32 | 64 | 128 | 256 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Proposed scheme | EN,M | 1.0409e-02 | 4.9874e-03 | 2.6159e-03 | 1.4219e-03 | 7.3985e-04 |
rN,M | 1.0615 | 0.9310 | 0.8795 | 0.9425 | 0.9719 | |
Scheme in [19] | EN,M | 3.41e-02 | 1.84e-02 | 9.38e-03 | 4.67e-03 | 2.31e-03 |
rN,M | 0.8901 | 0.9720 | 1.0062 | 1.0155 | 1.0063 | |
Scheme in [16] | EN,M | 4.9485e-02 | 3.3203e-02 | 2.1165e-02 | 1.3320e-02 | 7.9345e-03 |
rN,M | 0.5757 | 0.6496 | 0.6681 | 0.7474 | 0.7908 |
Schemes ↓ | N = 16 | 32 | 64 | 128 | 256 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M = 10 | 20 | 40 | 80 | 160 | ||
Proposed scheme | EN,M | 5.4832e-03 | 3.3921e-03 | 1.8292e-03 | 9.4367e-04 | 4.7832e-04 |
rN,M | 0.6928 | 0.8910 | 0.9549 | 0.9803 | 0.9909 | |
Scheme in [20] | EN,M | 1.86e-02 | 1.00e-02 | 5.48e-03 | 2.86e-03 | 1.46e-03 |
rN,M | 0.89 | 0.87 | 0.94 | 0.97 | 1.11 | |
Scheme in [18] | EN,M | 1.6119e-02 | 9.9504e-03 | 5.8541e-03 | 3.3439e-03 | 1.8650e-03 |
rN,M | 0.6960 | 0.7653 | 0.8079 | 0.8424 | 0.8660 | |
Scheme in [24] | EN,M | 7.4252e-03 | 4.0993e-03 | 2.1528e-03 | 1.1033e-03 | 5.5845e-04 |
rN,M | 0.8570 | 0.9291 | 0.9644 | 0.9822 | — |
5. Conclusion
In this paper, singularly perturbed parabolic convection-diffusion-reaction equation with large time delay is considered. The solution of the considered problem exhibits boundary layer of thickness ε on the right side of the spatial domain. The bounds and properties of the analytical solution are discussed. To stabilize the influence of the singular perturbation on the discrete solution, and exponential fitting parameter is developed using the derivation from the asymptotic solution. The numerical scheme is developed using the Crank-Nicolson method in temporal discretization and an exponentially fitted central finite difference method on the spatial discretization. The existence of the discrete solution is discussed using the comparison principle. The stability and uniform convergence of the scheme are investigated well theoretically. Numerical results are depicted using maximum absolute error, ε-uniform error, and ε-uniform rate of convergence in tables which are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis. The developed scheme gives stable and uniformly convergent result with linear order of convergence.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Data Availability
No additional data is used in this manuscript.